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Families Joined or Divided by Silence; Film Shed Light on Emotional Issues of the Deaf

By DINITIA SMITH

Published: June 11, 1998

A fierce thunderstorm rips through the night and wakens the little girl at the beginning of ''Beyond Silence,'' a new movie by the German director Caroline Link about the hearing child of two deaf parents. Night noises are the child's noises, heard only by the children of the deaf while their parents sleep on. The little girl runs to wake her mother and father, seeking comfort. ''Lightning is loud,'' the father says, in sign language. ''Lightning is silent, like the moon,'' the little girl responds.

Ninety percent of deaf parents have children with normal hearing, and ''Beyond Silence,'' which was nominated for an Academy Award this year for best foreign film, is a story of the conflict between isolation and belonging that occurs so often in such families. In his review of the film in The New York Times, Stephen Holden praised it as ''a powerful metaphor for the inevitable communication gap between children and parents in even the happiest of homes,'' though he criticized it for having a ''sentimental ending as various estranged characters reconnect in pat, teary-eyed encounters.''

In the film, Ms. Link, who is not deaf, touches on some of the most highly charged issues in deaf culture: oral language versus sign language, the role of music, and the hearing children of deaf parents. Lara, played as a little girl by Tatjana Trieb and as a young woman by Sylvie Testud, in effect becomes a parent to her parents, who are played by two of the deaf world's best-known actors, Howie Seago, an American, and Emmanuelle Laborit of France. The child interprets at parent-teacher conferences, often to her own advantage, and with sometimes amusing results. She breaks the news to her father that he won't be getting his Christmas bonus this year.

When her aunt, who is not deaf, gives her a clarinet and she takes up the instrument, Lara is caught in the middle of the lifelong conflict between her father and his own parents and siblings, who refuse to communicate with him in sign language, leaving him to catch what he can by reading their lips, and casting him to the margins of family life.

''It's a special, unique childhood situation,'' said Ms. Link, who got the idea for the movie after reading an article about a hearing woman who was raised by deaf parents. ''It is sometimes funny because she takes advantage of the situation,'' she said of the little girl in the film. ''At the same time it is too much for her to have to negotiate the world for her parents.''

In researching the film, Ms. Link said, she became entranced by the visual power and beauty of sign language. Indeed, one of the film's most compelling scenes is a religious service filmed at the Johann Baptist Church in Munich, with hundreds of deaf worshipers signing the liturgy in unison.

In many ways, the movie reflects the life stories of both its principal actors, Ms. Laborit and Mr. Seago.

''I was born deaf and proud of it,'' Mr. Seago, 43, said in a recent interview through a sign language interpreter. ''I grew up deaf and I hope I'm going to die deaf,'' he said with a laugh. Mr. Seago is known primarily for his portrayal of the title role in Peter Sellars's production of ''Ajax,'' about the Greek warrior known for his size and strength. And he brings to the role of the father in ''Beyond Silence'' some of Ajax's desolation and isolation.

As the deaf father of two hearing sons, Ryan, 12 and Kyle, 8 (his wife can hear), Mr. Seago knows something of the problems that can arise in families with deaf parents and children who have normal hearing.

''They have selective deafness,'' Mr. Seago said of his sons, speaking through a sign language interpreter. ''They're only deaf when they want to be. I'll be signing to them and they'll look away when they want to pretend they haven't heard what I'm saying. In public I will look at my sons, they'll interpret for me, but we try not to do that. If we depend on them, they can use that against us. It can become a battleground.''

Inherent in the film is the struggle in today's deaf world between advocates of oralism, or teaching the deaf to speak and read lips in the belief that it will help them assimilate more readily, and proponents of sign language, the complex web of gestures which is the hallmark of deaf culture. In Europe, oralism still prevails. In the United States, nearly half the states now recognize American Sign Language as a foreign language, and some school curriculums offer it as a second language. Still, some linguists oppose recognition of Sign, as it is sometimes known, as a true language, arguing that it is an invented form of communication.

Mr. Seago, the son of a father with a hearing impairment and a mother who can hear, was brought up in a world where sign language was essentially forbidden. He can speak quite clearly orally, but says he prefers to communicate in Sign because he can express and detect more.

''My father,'' like the father in the movie, Mr. Seago said, ''lived in a hearing world. He spoke and lip read. He didn't know sign language.'' Mr. Seago's two brothers suffered from varying degrees of hearing loss, but for the most part, his family communicates orally. ''In a family situation, I'm left out,'' he said.

Refusal to Sign As a Family Barrier

In the film Mr. Seago's father and sister also refuse to communicate with him in sign language. In one scene, Mr. Seago's character confronts his sister, whom he feels is stealing his daughter.